“We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.”
~ The United States Declaration of Independence
By Catherine Austin Fitts
Human vs. Inhuman Civilization
For our entire lives we have been engaged by “the clash of civilizations.” We have witnessed–
- Democratic nations versus the Nazis;
- A cold war with Russia;
- A return of the medieval war between Christianity and Islam;
- And now apparently the United States and European Union are cycling back into a cold war — some would say a “hot” war — against Russia.
Variations on the theme of the clash of civilizations include wars declared against invisible (and quite possibly non-existent) enemies, including–
- The War on Poverty;
- The War on Drugs;
- The War on Terrorism.
Then there were cultural and information wars, such as–
- Race wars;
- The battles between the sexes;
- Media wars.
We have witnessed additional “races” such as the Arms Race and the Space Race that inspired populations to compete with each other. Technology has continued to expand the frontiers of warfare, its latest being cyber warfare.
Throughout our immersion in perpetual war, several themes recur:
- The perpetual search for cheap natural resources and labor that subsidizes one civilization at the expense of another;
- The centuries-old struggle between the forces and economics of centralization versus decentralization;
- The use of “divide and conquer” tactics to govern and control;
- The success of Western civilization due to its superiority in warfare — both the overt and the covert applications of organized violence and psychological warfare known as mind control.
As advances in technology and rapid globalization inspire the reinvention of just about everything, a fundamental question appears: will ours be a human or an inhuman civilization? This question represents the real clash of civilizations currently before us – with powerful forces arrayed on both sides. In many respects, the clash offers a high-tech variation of the age-old question of peace versus war. Can the human race prosper without more debt, crime, and war?
A new President and his administration now grapple with how the United States, its economy and its role in the world will evolve from the Bretton Woods system created at the end of WWII and our uni-polar vision of the world. Will the United States successfully adapt to a more globalized, multi-polar world order? This critical discussion, begun in a rancorous campaign, is shrouded by partisan politics and a media “shriek-o-meter” that is distracting at best and dishonest at worst. At the heart of this problem lie the deep contradictions within the US economy that result from economic addiction to debt, crime, and war.
Our 1st Quarter Wrap Up is an assessment of the first 70 days of the new US Presidential administration in the context of these deeper changes currently underway.
The US Federal Budget & Your Missing Money
For almost two decades, I have continued to bring my readers back to the US federal budget and the real cost of some $27 trillion in bailouts — plus $11.5 trillion in undocumentable adjustments in federal accounts since federal fiscal year 1998.
When I talk about this money, I am not thinking about ordinary “currency.” These stolen monies are the resources required to send children to college or to ensure good food and health care for families. These resources are needed to maintain the transportation networks that a modern economy needs to function; and the water and sewer systems that a civilization depends on. These are the resources that stood behind our promises to pension beneficiaries, government employees, and veterans. These are reserves for a rainy day.
I am also concerned about the financial incentives we are creating for ourselves. Are we encouraged to produce junk science or to addict people to junk food, pornography, and gambling? Or, are we encouraged to take care of our natural environment and to provide education for our children? Unfortunately for us, crime that pays is crime that stays.
I am also thinking about control. If a group of people can steal $27 trillion and $11.5 trillion without regard for the law, then these people have sufficient power and money to control just about everything and everyone. They get to be the bosses, regardless of which politicians are elected or what the laws and courts say. This truism remains if we pay our taxes and the US Congress continues to appropriate tax dollars to federal agencies that refuse to obey the Constitution or the laws related to financial management.
Money is not simply money in your pocket or your bank account. It represents our stored time and energy and our promises to one another, including our commitment to manage and allocate resources in the future. It includes incentives to reward certain behavior and to penalize other types of behavior. In amounts large enough, money confers power and maybe even control.
So I am focused on the budget and on federal accounts – which are where the real operating policies come together. If the budget and our federal accounts are lawless, if they are used consistently to transfer assets to private interests that are above the law and which finance inhuman acts, then it is only a matter of time before society itself becomes lawless and inhuman.
The Central Banking Warfare Model
For 500 years, the Western nations have operated on an economic model that I call the central banking-warfare model. The central banks print fiat currency and the military services ensure that this currency can be exchanged for cheap natural resources. Armed with the central banking-warfare model, the Western world has pooled trillions in capital and subsidized our lifestyle at the expense of the developing world. However, with globalization and increased investment, per capita incomes in certain developing areas (particularly China and East Asia) are converging with those in the developed world.
Since World War II, the United States has enjoyed the benefits of issuing the world’s reserve currency, and globalization has permitted a significant expansion of the dollar base. However, the recent wave of globalization is now in a period of consolidation. Numerous countries around the world are moving to develop greater global liquidity of their own currencies as well as independent payment systems to reduce their dependency on the US dollar.
The benefits of issuing the world’s reserve currency came with the cost of supplying a global military presence, including satellites and an extensive naval presence. With the explosion in the size and scope of the US military-industrial complex (and recent wars in the Middle East), the costs of a global military presence are significant. The US defense budget is a particular financial problem for the federal government because many of the assets acquired during foreign wars have accrued to private corporations and investors rather than to the government which must service the debt used to finance the war.
Thus, the central banking-warfare model has run its course and we must now reinvent our global currency arrangements and the global economic model. With the end of the long-term bull market in bonds and the growth of global equity markets, ideally, we can shift to an equity-based model over time. As you can imagine, however, changing a 500-year-old model is a major undertaking. All signs indicate that this change is going to be a painful birthing process.
Mr. Global and Our Invisible Governance Structure
This brings us to the deep structural problems in the US budget. I offer a detailed description of these problems in my article, Coming Clean Beyond the Fiscal Cliff.
In essence, the clash of civilizations and the decision regarding whether we will be a human or an inhuman society are at the very heart of our budget battles. In this process, we must grapple with several serious structural imbalances:
- We can no longer afford to maintain a global empire and our existing global military presence. Yet, here we are with a major military force stretched thin across the globe and with numerous private investment and corporate interests depending on it to perform.
- To quote Jack Ma, the United States has spent $14 trillion on global wars over the last 30 years – but most of the resulting assets gained were privatized. The US taxpayer has been left liable for the resulting debt, military pensions, and health care costs.
- We now have over $11.5 trillion in undocumentable adjustments in the federal accounts since federal fiscal year 1998. Where that money went has not been disclosed: the federal government has refused to comply with Constitutional requirements and financial laws, including those requiring audits and transparency of accounts and audits.
- The US government maintains a significant “black budget.” There is reason to believe that much of the technology created and funded through this vehicle is owned by private companies who were paid via the black budget. This corporate windfall is one of the greatest windfalls in history.
- During the process of the bank bailouts, trillions in debt were shifted to the federal government balance sheet without shifting any of the assets that had been acquired with that debt.
- Reconciling the federal accounts is likely to increase awareness of where trillions have disappeared and the motivation behind numerous inhuman policies conducted by the US government including global spraying, heavy schedules of vaccines, and suppression of cures for cancer and other terminal diseases. The list is nearly endless.
No doubt, you are beginning to understand why I refer to these developments as part of a financial coup d’état.
Grappling with these imbalances ultimately raises the question of who is really governing this system. This question remains a mystery even to those who have been following these events for many years. One thing is clear: we are financing one or more “breakaway civilizations” from the tax revenues and balance sheet of another civilization. This means that we are financing people and operations whose actions are outside the law and whose intentions towards us are inhuman. In both financial and political terms, we have a parasite. And the parasite’s intent is to kill the host.
If you look at the actual relationship between taxpayers and the black budget on one hand, and private investors and breakaway civilizations on the other hand, it will become apparent why powerful, private interests want to rewrite the US Constitution before it can be enforced. It should also be apparent why we must rethink whether it is wise to continue to finance the people who are implementing an inhuman civilization.
Who is your banker? If you are banking with the NY Fed member banks that have transacted trillions in illegal, unconstitutional transactions with your tax dollars, then you need to take a serious look in the mirror.
The US Presidential Hot Seat
There is only one thing more challenging than the transformation we now face: our state of denial regarding where we are and how we got here. Emerging from this state of denial will be no small feat, let alone successfully navigating the changes currently underway. In one sense, it is not surprising that we find ourselves with a President lacking government experience and whose mother was Scottish – the Scots being known for their fearlessness.
Helping us out of denial and building a pathway towards a civilization that is human, prosperous, and lawful would appear to be a seemingly impossible task. Regardless of whether a new administration fails or succeeds, this is a very real possibility if every one of us will do our best to simply head in that direction. This is why, whenever I hear another blood-curdling scream from the Washington establishment as it turns up its shriek-o-meter volume, I think, “Ah…the sound of hope.”
It is the sound of cash flows receding from the bank accounts of the unproductive.